Adelaide Central School of Art – 2022 HSAA Award

2022 HSAA Award Winner, Brenton Drechsler

Hill Smith Art Advisory were once again honoured to present the HSAA Award to an outstanding student at the Adelaide Central School of Art Graduate Exhibition 2022.

The Award is a $5,000 cash prize awarded to an outstanding artist in the genres of painting, drawing or printmaking. 

The artist chosen for the 2022 HSAA Award is painter Brenton Drechsler. HSAA congratulates Brenton Drechsler on his practice and achievements as well as all graduates. 

Read more about Brenton’s practice in his artist statement here:

“My practice explores ideas around privacy, personal narrative and opacity through the subjective lens of my queer identity. In a series of oil paintings, my work attempts to speak for some of the experiences I have had as a queer person, living and working in heteronormative environments.

The way in which I subvert and interact with my subject matter is to queer it - through the use of a green and white striped motif, that acts as a kind of alter ego. I have queered garments, foreign urban environments, and personal iconography, in my paintings. My subject matter, whilst varied is influenced by my past careers in the fashion industry as a designer and in aviation, as a flight attendant.

I’ve attempted to skew and distort my paintings, disrupting their representative authority and willing them into something that best speaks to my personal narrative. The ever present green and white striped motif evokes my internal tussle between masculinity and femininity. To me it speaks of the order and disorder of being queer.

Stripes have a complexity in that they disguise and attract attention, simultaneously. They are neither natural nor neutral. Stripes can be transparent but they can also provide much needed opacity. My striped motif represents the common uncomfortable experience I often face in hetero-normative situations, and my conflicted attempts to blend in and be present, all at once. By advancing, distracting and weaving in and out of my compositions, my striped motif behaves in an almost audacious, sassy manner - which evoke characteristics that don’t come naturally to me as a person.”